


Bandit Punting Season

by danceswithhamsters01



Series: Reddit Prompts [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Female Amell - Freeform, Gen, Morrigan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 13:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16285133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Based on a prompt from r/dragonage.Ava Hawke has made it home to Lothering from Ostagar after the terrible defeat of the king's army. While looking for supplies, she sees a small band of strangers have a "discussion" with the bandits who've set up shop near town.





	Bandit Punting Season

****Prompt 3:**** Hawke watches from a distance as the Warden and companions arrive in Lothering. First impressions and thoughts while watching.  

 

It had been a long exhausting trip home from Ostagar. She and Carver had only made it back to Lothering a couple of nights ago. The things they had seen along the way had not encouraged them. So many wounded, so many scared refugees, not to mention other deserters, were along the road as they had traveled. It only confirmed to Ava that she’d made the right choice in grabbing her younger brother and running once the tide had turned against them. The beacon had been lit, but no reinforcements had come. Money wasn’t worth dying for, even if their family was barely scraping by as it was.

 

Ava had come into the village proper in hope of scoring some supplies before her family left the area. She hoped to have them out of there in less than a week. That horde of darkspawn… Maker only knew how quickly it would travel north. Carver was still mightily upset over fleeing the battle and had opted to go hunt some game to cool off. Food would be handy, especially meat, if they could prepare it quickly enough for travel.

 

Mother was being unreasonable, not wanting to flee the area, or the house Father had built with his own hands. She had become… stubborn… regarding anything relating to Father in the years since he’d died. There would’ve been more work for them in, say, Rainesfere if she’d been willing to move the family. The Bann there had been looking to hire on more guards on a permanent basis a couple of years ago. It could have given them some stability. Ava shook her head fiercely and sighed. Mother could hate her all she wanted after they got out of the horde’s path.

 

An angry voice caught her ear, making her turn and look at the old Imperial Highway that led into Lothering. Bandits. She’d heard some of the sodding blighters had set up shop nearby, demanding money from any and all who dared to come their way. Ava ducked behind a pillar, not wanting to catch anyone’s eye. Curiosity getting the better of the eldest Hawke daughter, she peeked out and watched the exchange.

 

“They are fools to get in our way! I say teach them a lesson!” the taller woman snapped. The staff and the way she carried herself made Hawke think that perhaps this was an apostate. A very gutsy apostate, at that.

 

The bandits’ leader tried to smooth talk the travelers, but the smaller woman, who made Hawke think of a shorter Bethany with a less endowed chest for some reason, wasn’t having it. She growled something but her soft voice was hard to pick up.

 

“As am I!” cackled the taller woman, making a show of holding a small ball of lightning in her hand in plain view.

 

The smaller woman whipped out what looked like a bo-staff and yelled for her hound, a cinnamon toned beast with white feet, to attack. Before taking a swing with her weapon, a blast of cold shot out from the smaller woman’s hands, freezing several of the bandits. TWO mages on the loose? How’d a mage get a mabari?

 

A man in grey and blue plate mail came running moments after the ice had stopped flowing from the smaller mage’s hands and bashed one of the frozen solid bandits with his shield, shattering the poor bastard into literal pieces. Wait… there was a griffon on his shield and his chest plate. Were they… were they Grey Wardens?! She’d seen a few, at a distance, back in Ostagar. Rumors flying at the pub said they’d all died with the king they’d betrayed. She took a closer look at the small Bethany-lookalike. Grey and blue uniform, a large griffon symbol embroidered onto her left shoulder, using that bo-staff as if she were intimately familiar with it…. Father had always said that the best mages in the Circle got some training in weapons combat. He’d taught both her and Carver the basics when they were kids.

 

_Oh… Oh SOD._ Things were going to get nasty quickly if the rumors were in any way true.

 

The battle was going poorly for the bandits, all but two of them lay dead, some to magic and some just mercifully cut down by sword or mabari. The lead bandit was on his knees, babbling and woozy from many injuries.

 

“Alright! Alright! We surrender! We’re just trying to get by before the darkspawn get us all!”

 

Ava strained to listen. The smaller mage had that “coldly enraged” look about her.

 

“People like you never learn. You’ll just do all this again somewhere else. I’m not going to let that happen,” the mage Warden snarled. She made an exaggerated show of weaving a spell, making the two survivors scream in terror. One may have possibly soiled himself.

 

“Wait, wait, waaaaaaait!” the bandit leader howled. “I promise I won’t get up to anything bad if you spare us! I swear!”

 

The mage gave a menacing glare at the pair of men. “Get out of my sight. If I see you again...”

 

The men scrabbled to their feet and began running as far from Lothering as they could get.

 

“Pity. They would’ve made nice corpses,” the taller mage chuckled.

 

“I’ve had my fill of death for the day,” the shorter Warden replied.

 

The smaller mage was leaning on her staff, looking both exhausted and deeply unhappy. The hound sat next to her, nudging his head against her hip. One hand drifted from the staff to scratch behind the beast’s ears.

 

These travelers were dangerous. The helpful bandit-barbecuing sort of dangerous, but still. If they really were Grey Wardens, she didn’t want to get in their way, doing that seemed to be rather deadly. She waited for them to pass by her hiding place before daring to move. Ava took care to not be too near the strangers as she went about her business. All too soon, it was time to return home to Mother and Bethany with what few things she’d been able to find. She hoped Carver had better luck in his task than she did.


End file.
